Google originally announced it was killing its Google+ social network platform by the end of August 2019. The move was due to an alarming data breach the company says affected 500,000 of its users. But in a new blog post this week, the company says there has been an additional data breach. This time, the vulnerability impacted 52.5 million users. In response, Google is expediting the shutdown of Google+ which is now planned for April of 2019.

The new data breach occurred due to a bug in a November software update. That caused the Google+ API to mark user’s personal info viewable to third-party developers, even though they set it to be private. Google found the bug as part of its standard testing practice and writes, “we have no evidence that the app developers that inadvertently had this access for six days were aware of it or misused it in any way.” Google will also be notifying the over 50 million users whose profile data was exposed. The company will also continue operating Google+ as an enterprise product for subscribers of its G Suite service.

Delete Google+ Profile

Google originally started Google+ in 2010 to compete with Facebook but was quickly forgotten by most users in favor of other social networking platforms. So, even if you don’t remember using Google+ you should check to see if you have a profile set up. If so, get rid of it. There’s no need to wait any longer. Getting rid of your Google+ profile doesn’t affect your regular Google account, but will keep you safe from other potential breaches

We’ve covered it before in our article on how to delete your Google+ profile. The process is simple and straight-forward. Before deleting it, you might have some items on there you want to keep. You can do that using Google Takeout which lets you download data from other Google services as well.

Then you choose how you want your data archive sent — via email, Dropbox, OneDrive…etc. Once you have your data archive, simply head to the Google+ Downgrade page and follow the on-screen instructions to delete your profile. That’s it! You’re now done with Google’s failed social network.